Countdown

It is hard to believe that the Glitterati are nearly eight weeks old and getting ready to leave for their new homes. Several of you have asked if I will continue to write the Blog. I have decided to use this Blog as "Recent News" for our website so yes, I will maintain the Blog but I will not write every day and I will also not just write about the Glitterati. Thanks to those of you who have so loyally followed our Blog and helped create such a caring Glitterati community :)

Our wonderful Utah vet, Dr. Kris, came over this morning. All puppies received a thorough health check and their first vaccine -- a parvo/distemper only combo. She found a very, very slight ejection heart murmur in Jamaica -- she rated it as 0.5 out of 5. It is her opinion that it is innocent and that she will outgrow it, but I have shared the information with Barb so she can make an informed decision about whether to take Jamaica. There were no other issues identified with any puppy.

I talked to her about additional vaccinations as some new owners' vets have asked about them. Dr. Kris is not a hippy, holistic vet (that is not bad! she just isn't one) -- she is a moderate traditional vet. She does not believe any additional vaccinations are warranted and was especially surprised that some vets strongly advised the adenovirus. We talked about the Lepto vaccine -- she does not recommend or use that either. The incidence of vaccination reaction is very high with that, and she worries about secondary reactions involving the immune system later down the road. Finally, I asked about the use of glucosamine with puppies -- she stated that it has not been proven safe or unsafe in puppies, and so she would not recommend it; she does recommend fish oil.


Very handsome Toronto will be making his home with Joan.


This is our sweet Sydney -- she highly recommends new owners bring bully sticks for puppies and a present for the Puppy Nanny ;)


This very adorable Ireland is going to get spoiled by Grandma Cindy and grudgingly tolerated by Grandpa Vic -- she will be John and Kristine's little girl.


This is Rock Star saying "hey" to his Aunt Heidi, who wants to steal him and nibble on his cute head.


The litter sweetheart -- Geneva.


Here is Dr. Kris checking out Ireland.

It is time to meet our last family! Many of you have enjoyed getting to know Liz, Sam and especially their many emotioned pug :) Although they live in Illinois, I was able to meet Sam and Liz in November when they were here so that Liz could check out the University of Utah. I am sure you will agree with me that they are a perfect family for a sweet Glitterati puppy:

"Hi everyone! We are Liz & Sam and we currently live in Urbana, Illinois. Sam works as a systems analyst for USA Today and Liz is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology. We moved all the way from Orlando, Florida two years ago for Liz to pursue her doctoral work. Liz works with people who have experienced many kinds of challenges, but she is especially interested in working with people who have experienced trauma and also working as a social justice activist (We both got to attend the Proposition 8 Protest in Salt Lake City when we were visiting in November!). Liz is really excited about getting involved with therapy dog work and taking her future therapy dog to VA hospitals to work with veterans. Liz and Sam would also like to pursue draft/carting work with their future Glitterati family member and have already gotten started in our draft/carting work reading! In our spare time, we love to go to parks, lakes, and beaches with Kiko (our pug), read, play board games, ride bicycles, volunteer at our local Bike Collective and Food Co-op, travel, cook, enjoy time with friends, go to social justice events and protests, and dance!

We are fairly new to berners and feel grateful to Mary-Ann for believing in us and for trusting us with one of her precious little ones. As many of you know we've been a pug and cat family up until recently with Kiko the 'many emotioned' pug, Lilith the cat, and Mr. Bentley who is forever in our hearts. Last April Mr. Bentley crossed over the Rainbow Bridge and we have missed him dearly. He was a very special little guy who came to us as a rescue through our pug play group in Orlando, Florida. He and Kiko got along famously and we all (including Kiko) went through a long grieving period last spring/summer.

Over time we started our search for a new family member, and when we stumbled upon the Bernese Mountain Dog breed we were immediately smitten with their beauty, history, and well-known gentle temperaments. As we learned more about the breed through going to dog shows and talking to breeders, joining the Berner-L and other listservs, and reading from the BMDCA website it became more and more clear this was the right breed for us. We wanted to "try out" living with a large dog while also helping a rescue dog so we got involved with BARC (a Bernese Mountain Dog rescue group). Pretty soon we received our first charge of fostering a six year old berner girl named Carly. Carly was as sweet as they come, but she had never lived inside before and didn't know much about eating good foods or housetraining. We applied patience and love to her care and were surprised at how resilient she was and how fast she learned. Carly spent about six weeks with us before getting adopted and going on to her forever home. The experience was wonderful and we began looking more seriously into berner breeders. We were really impressed with Mary-Ann's thoughtful posts to the Berner-L and contacted her to learn more about her and her breeding program. In November, we visited Salt Lake City and met Mary-Ann, Kim, Jake, Cassie, Zoey, and Asia. Of course, all of our research and reading was confirmed when we got to spend some time with them and we feel very lucky and blessed to be given this important charge of being Glitterati parents!

We started a blog and hope to keep it going with the adventures of Kiko and his new baby sister: www.pugandberner.blogspot.com. Right now it has a little history about Kiko and a dedication to Mr. Bentley Fartbottom. Feel free to check it out and follow the adventures to come!"

Liz arrives tomorrow and on Saturday will be flying home with the perfect little therapy dog -- Geneva :) We are very happy to welcome Sam and Liz and their crew to the Kaibab family.

I certainly hope you are choosing to have a joyful day, no matter what is going on in your life. Thanks for your visit!